The Rage Room

by Lisa de Nikolits

  I peeled off the suit and stood under the cleanup rinse wishing I never had to leave. I still felt grimy after the shower and I rubbed myself down with some of the HandiWipes they provided. There was a small cut on my hand, proving that the government-issue gloves were useless. I squeezed the tiny cut, maximizing the flow of blood. I was happy I was bleeding. Look, I bled too. I was human.

  “Here,” the rage room guy handed me a MediWipe. “You shouldn’t have cut yourself. I’ll make sure the ProtectGear doesn’t fail again. We keep our patrons safe. That’s our promise to you, to provide a safe haven for your anger.”

  WTF? I didn’t hear a word he’d said. It was Norman.

  “What do you know about time travel?” I blurted out, jumping into his face, and he laughed.

  “Nothing, man. Dr. Who, shit like that. It’s not real, but it sure is interesting. Who knows in the future though? Anything can happen. Here’s a HealPatch.”

  I took it and peeled off the covering. When I looked up, Norman was gone and another guy was standing there. “Gonna give you a refund today,” he said. “There should be no injuries. Our bad.”

  “Can I get a job here?” I asked. “I’d love to work here.”

  “We have a BotList I can flash you,” he said. “But I’m telling you now, we’re pretty full up. Union job, good pay, benefits, and six weeks furlough a year, and as much access to comfort centres as we like.”

  It all sounded appealing apart from the comfort centres. CCs were spa-type setups catering to every un-hostile emotion. If you needed to be pampered, massaged, manicured, pedicured, acupunctured, or hugged, you just checked in at a comfort centre. I went once at Mother’s insistence, but it felt claustrophobic and intrusive. I never returned. The comfort centres also offered small narrow booths where you could chat to an “unseen friend,” kind of like a confessional in that you never actually got to see the person behind the small, purple, velvet curtain. Your unseen friend murmured comforting affirmations that you were loved, that you were important and respected, and that you were worthy of that respect. I had no time for all that empowering, feel-good bullshit.

  But people loved the centres, and there were often long lineups to climb into the white chaise lounge that reminded me uncomfortably of dentist chairs. It was all designed to encourage honest dialogue, although really it was just people venting the same old shit. The purple curtain never opened. The chair hugged your body, the lights dimmed for your twenty minutes, tiny stars glowed on the walls and ceiling, and you voiced your greatest fears and your worst sins. No matter what you said, the voice was kind, but you had to display voice moderation control, and physical displays of anger were not permitted under any circumstances. I had proven this to be true.

  I’d screamed obscenities and pounded on the glass. My actions were immediately curtailed. The lights flashed on highbeam, and the voice, no longer friendly at all, told me to check in at a rage room because my aggression had no place in this oasis. I’d also proven that the only thing behind the velvet curtains was a funhouse mirror that made your face look weird.

  It was weird how much everybody loved the CCs, as they were called, because, while we had recourse to help lines on our portable comms and you could flash chat with a virtual EmoHealthExec any time you wanted, it was the personal touch that people craved, having a real person listen to you. Only I was pretty certain that the only thing listening to you was an EmoBot.

  If you liked, on your way out, you could get a real life hug from an EmoHealthExec. Each CC had a serene suburban living room filled with plush sofas and soft cushions, and you could take your pick from a group of professional huggers. There were limits to how long you could hold the hug, and any off-colour behaviour such as buttock fondling, breasts feels, or an inappropriate pelvic distance saw you banned for life. Hugging was one of the highest-paid careers. Between the rage rooms and the CCs, Minnie had created vast employment opportunities.

  “I’m not a fan of the CCs,” I told the rage room guy. “Hugging is out of the question, but man, I’d love to work here! Hook me up with the BotList, and I’ll apply. I’ll do anything to change my life. I’m sick of the shit I deal with.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. But I gotta be honest, you need a referral or relative on the voting board. My father-in-law got me in here. It’s the only way, these days. I mean, you can submit your experiential profile—they legally have to let you—but pretty much none of the applications make it past the RoboFilters without a verfiying in-house signature. You tell me one business that doesn’t work that way. Unless you’ve been there since when you interned, you don’t get in.”

  I nodded. “I interned at Integratron after I graduated from the Global International University. I’ve got a Ph.D. in Optimal Communications and Life Branding, a master’s in Flexibility Optics and Mass Persuasion, and a bunch of related psych and social media majors. I’m educated up the yin yang, but I’m looking for something new.” I’d always been aware of the ironies. Me, a psych major? What a joke.

  “Take some free advice from me. Ride the horse you’ve been given until he drops dead. If he keeps going, you keep going too.” Great. I was talking to a philosopher. Plus, he wasn’t telling me what I wanted to hear.

  “Thanks, man,” I said and wandered out to my car. I wanted to go home, but I wasn’t ready. I still had too many pent-up feelings. So I made my next mistake, which was to go and visit Mother.

  I parked outside the house. Was this a bad idea? I thought about how I killed her in the future and wrote on her body with a thick, black, felt-tipped pen. What was it that I had written? I didn’t have any idea, no memory whatsoever. An apology?

  I got out of the car and locked it. I walked up the long path and rang the doorbell.

  “Hello,” Mother said when she answered, and she sounded neither pleased nor displeased to see me.

  “Can I come in?”

  She opened the door, and I went inside.

  “My room’s the same?” I asked even although I knew the answer, and she nodded.

  “Why? You don’t want to see me and yet you kept my room?” I wanted her to tell me it was because she knew I’d screw up. I was hoping we could talk about it. Maybe she’d be able to help me be different and do different things. But she changed the subject instead. “Is Celeste still drinking?”

  Ouch. “She’s in rehab. We’ve all got our own issues, Mother. At least she’s trying, and a new baby will help.”

  “Oh sure it will,” Mother said and I wanted to hit her.

  “What’s wrong with you, Mother? Should we stop procreating? What’s your great and marvellous plan for our future? I know you’ve got one. You and Ava and the army!” I was shouting, but Mother remained calm. She didn’t ask me where I’d got my information, and I couldn’t remember if we’d had the conversation before. I felt confused and sick, and I couldn’t remember anything. “Just tell me!” I yelled. “I’ve got a right to know. No one tells me anything! I’m not stupid!”

  “All right then. We let it run out. The world, us, and the mess we’ve made. In the meantime, we’ll do the best we can, whatever that means, but we need to admit that as a species, humanity has failed. Life is a rage room, Sharps, you know that better than anyone. That’s all it is. Angry people flailing about, hitting things and destroying rubbish from the past. Your children will grow up useless and depressed unless things change. We need to run dry and start again. No apps, no robots. Let the weather be the weather; let it fail us, reward us, and be real again. Let real crops grow again and make clothes from fibres found in nature. Ban plastic wherever possible. Have a real world again, instead of this fake, sterile tedium where everybody lives in a virtual reality that isn’t real at all.” She came to an abrupt stop.

  “You’re right, Mother,” I said, and I sank down into a chair and folded my arms. “I hate my job, and it’s going to end badly. My life is going to end badl
y, and I want to try to change things. Things will end badly for you and for my family. Isn’t there anything we can do, you and me, to change the course of my life?”

  “You may think you want to change things, Sharps,” she said, “but in the end, you won’t do a damned thing. And nothing I can say will change that, which is why I can’t get too involved with Bax and your future child. The lives that you and Celeste live are polar opposites to my moral principles. Poor little Bax is doomed, and it’s too horrible to watch. So much of the world is angry, but we, my group, we’re not. We understand the way things are, and we accept. We accept and we don’t partake or participate. And one day, we will unplug it all and reboot the system.”

  She sounded like she was repeating something a fanatic had written. No wonder she and Ava got on so well; they were both on the same crazy page.

  “So, you don’t care about dying?”

  “Well, of course I don’t want to die, Sharps. None of us do. But that’s not the point. It’s the awful pointlessness of living that I’m trying to deal with.”

  It occurred to me that Mother was seriously psychologically damaged and needed help. But for the level she was at, I knew what kind of help she’d get: pills, pills, and more pills until she couldn’t take a shit by herself. No, if you were that messed up, it was better to keep it on the down low because once you were in the system for failing even a low-level EmoPsych, it was over for you. They kept you pumped full of meds, ramming them down your throat in increasing doses to keep you “safe,” which meant controllable.

  I’d passed all my EmoPsychs, which only proved that I knew how to play the game.

  “But Mother,” I burst out, “you do want things. You say you don’t, but you do. Why on earth would you agree to a NeptuneSupremeBodyFountain if you didn’t want things?”

  She looked at me as if I had lost my mind and, in a way, she was right. I had spoken from the future. Oops. But Mother looked delighted. “Now that you mention it, it that would be lovely. There’s nothing like the healing power of water. Feel free to gift me with that for Christmas, Sharps. Good thinking!”

  “I don’t have the money,” I said morosely. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t even know why I came to see you, but I’m glad I did. You cleared up a lot of things for me, Mother.”

  “Good. Because I have to go,” she said. “Do you need to break anything before you leave?”

  “No, Mother, I don’t. But thank you.”

  I walked down the path and got back into my car. Nothing was going my way. I was trying everything I could to try to steer things onto a better course, but there wasn’t any give. Once inside the soundproof little bubble, I screamed and pounded the dashboard with my fists.

  28. TRYING, AND FAILING, TO CHANGE THINGS

  I DROVE HOME, EXHAUSTED. I wondered if I’d remember my conversation with Mother when I got back to my real present. And my efforts with Jazza—would I remember them too?

  When I got home, not even my boy’s joy at seeing me could lift my spirits. I played with him and bathed and fed him, but I was sunk in gloom. Mother was right. What kind of world did we live in? I tried for the most part not to see what was going on out there, but it was all so messed up. We’d let ourselves get dumbed down, and the world was full of people walking around as if protected by giant water wings. Why did we need to be constantly shielded? Because we couldn’t be trusted? I’d never thought about it before. I had simply accepted things.

  Mother was right about the loss of meaning. Celeste steadfastly maintained that Christmas was all about Jesus, but it was more like the old cult movie, Brazil, a 1985 classic I’d watched with Jazza when we decided to vape some weed and get high and act stupid. Neither of us had particularly enjoyed the experience, but the movie was good. I’d loved the “Consumers for Christ” Christmas parade that parodied consumerism as wolves in sheep’s clothing. And that was then! Consumerism was still our god. All we did was shop, eat, and sleep—the new Holy Trinity.

  And the best Bax could hope for a was a job like mine, where he’d shuffle through his day until he could go home to eat, drink, and shop, and pretend to be someone else by donning his avatar self. No wonder we were so angry. One way or another, Bax’s life would amount to no more than a placeholder for meaningless productivity while he channelled the hours of his day. We had failed to create a better world. I crushed my knuckles against my temples and groaned.

  “You all right, Mr. Barkley?” It was Nanny Flo. I seized the moment.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just a tough day at work. Listen Flo, how are you?” My fervent question startled her, and she looked around, uneasily.

  “I am fine,” she said, and she looked ready to run.

  “Where is your family? Is everybody here in St. Polycarp’s?”

  “No, Mr. Barkley, they are in St. Barbara’s. I send them money.”

  “Your husband and your kids? How many kids?”

  “I have five children. And my sister has four. We have no husbands; they left.”

  “So you’re supporting ten people?”

  “More than that. My parents and my grandparents are still alive too.” She laughed. “We have a very big family.”

  I tried to remember how much we paid her, but Celeste was in charge of that. I’d have to speak to her about it. Did we pay Nanny Flo enough?

  “You know you can come to me if there’s ever anything you need,” I insisted, and she looked confused.

  “I mean if you’re ever in trouble, don’t leave us. Please never leave us, Flo.” She looked more startled than alarmed, and I let her go before I made things worse.

  I decided to chat to Celeste via the portable comm. Maybe she’d make me feel better. I dialled her up, and she answered. She had a green face mask on and seemed in a good mood. “Sharps, sweetie, are you okay? You look a bit weirded out?”

  “The world’s a mess,” I sank into the sofa and switched the view from my portable comm to my CP. “We won’t be able to protect Bax. And I don’t want to protect him. I want him to be a real human, a standup guy who can fend for himself. But then what? What kind of life will he have? Relationships? Will he have kids of his own? Will he have any kind of religious faith? What will keep him going?”

  I came to a stop, and Celeste laughed. “Oh, honey. What’s the point of thinking about any of that? Was work today that terrible?”

  The awful trajectory of my doomed life flashed before my eyes, and I choked back a sob. “It was bad. And it’s going to get worse. Nobody wants to hear anything I’ve got to say. I’m a pawn, CeeCee. Nothing but a pawn. A stooge, a joke, a bit player in a stage show where everybody else knows what they’re doing and I don’t have a clue.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you have had a bad day. Do you want to take me upstairs and get some of the old Lucky Hole? Although wait, I’d need to really be there for that. But I can walk you through it, help you find release?”

  “No. I don’t want that. It’s the last thing I want. I want to try to figure things out, make things different, and create a different outcome than the one I know lies ahead. CeeCee, do you have any secrets from me? Please tell me. Tell me everything. I won’t be shocked. I won’t. I’ll always love you.”

  Would I? Did I even love her now? We were more like tacit partners hiding behind a façade when really we were robots just like the rest of the world, keeping time to the marching band of trending politics and social dictates we were powerless to change.

  “I love you, too, HoneyBear. I do. Listen, you’re worrying me. Why don’t you take a pill? Just one, for tonight. You’re so on edge. I heard that things went well with Lila, and I’m doing well. Things are moving along, sweetie—they are! Do you want a pill?”

  “I do NOT want a pill!” I jumped up and heard Bax start to cry upstairs. “Oh shit. I’ll go and get him. But Celeste, do you have any secrets from me?” I shouted, and she flinch
ed, clutching her hand to her chest and looking at me, wide-eyed from the comm. “No, sweetie, I don’t. Listen, get Nanny Flo to get Bax. You’re too wound up. You need to go to your special place or something. Go and calm down, okay? Go and work out maybe. I don’t know, but do something.”

  She was right. I had to get out of the house. My body hadn’t seemed to suffer any ill effects from my having come back. If anything, I felt an agitated restlessness.

  We logged off. I grabbed my keys and got into my car and drove to a place where I could see St. Polycarp’s skyline.

  I sat in my car. Skyscraper city lay before me, sparkling and shiny, futuristic and impersonal. It could be any country in the world. And another stack of cubic zirconia, home to millions of little rats and hamsters, each living a pointless life, obediently running on the wheel in front of them and falling into the sawdust that lined their cages. I could even imagine the smell of sawdust, the sweet fragrance of the freshly sawn wood shavings.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes. I had been right to kill my family. There was no point to their awful ungodly lives. Little rats and hamsters. I’d let the week run out. I’d do my time and go back to my future.

  Shit. My future where I had killed Mother and was on the run. Right, that wasn’t so great either. Maybe I had been right to spare my family this awful existence, but I still needed to figure out a plan for myself. A plan in which they were spared this terrible meaninglessness but one in which I escaped the eye of the police. And I knew from Celeste’s response to me that she was lying. She had secrets, and there was something rotten to her core. And Nanny Flo would leave, so the kids had no hope. I wished we hadn’t brought Sophie into the world—it was selfish and wrong.

  Was that what I was supposed to do this time around? Was the answer for me to go back to a pre-Celeste time? I couldn’t do that. My time with my kids was the only thing that had given my life any meaning.

  And I didn’t want to cancel Sophie. I loved my time with her. She was my sweet little angel. She enjoyed all the things a baby should. I ended things before her life became polluted and I got to appreciate her pure joy, her sweet, unsullied essence.